MRI Side Effects

Generally, magnetic resonance
imaging machines, or MRI machines for short, are safe to use. Although
they use very powerful magnetic fields and radio waves to produce very detailed
images of your organs, it is a painless procedure and should do no harm to the
person inside. However, there are necessary precautions that could cause
adverse effects that are important to prevent MRI side effects.

MRI safety

Any magnetic objects should not be
in close proximity to the MRI machine. Doing so can cause those objects
to move around with great force and harm the patient or the technician.
Any metallic objects such as watches, jewelry, belt buckles or buttons
must be removed beforehand.

Possible implants in the body can be
affected by the powerful magnetic field. They can be jostled around in
the body or even potentially extract it. Also, any metallic fragments in
the body (i.e. bullet, nail, staple) must be acknowledged by the MRI
technician.

Hearing aids, pacemakers and other
electrical implants may be vulnerable to MRI machines. They can
be damaged by the magnetic fields or again, moved from its original
position. Some implants can also be heated to very high temperatures
inside the body. Other implants may just alter the quality of
the scanned images taken.

MRI dangers

If you follow the basic precautions,
there is no real danger to you. Remove any loose magnetic objects lying
around, along with any metallic objects on your body or on your clothing.
Lastly, be sure that the technician knows about any implants or fragments in
your body that could be hazardous.

Some MRI exams will inject a
substance known as gadolinium. This is a contrasting agent that is
designed to improve the quality of the images. In most cases, this is
harmless to the body and rarely produce an allergic reaction. However,
people who suffer with impaired renal functions due to kidney problems can be
vulnerable to gadolinium side effects.

The most dangerous side effect is
that the patient can develop Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis symptoms, that
causes dark, tightened skin that leads to joint immobility and pain. If
you have a history of kidney failure, be absolutely sure it is known before you
are administered with gadolinium.

MRI side effects

There are no dangerous MRI side effects (other than those potentially due to gadolinium).
However, it is a long procedure involves the patient to lay still in
an enclosed machine that is relatively loud. All these sources of stress
on the body can lead to dizziness, nausea, headaches, anxiety, sweating and so
on. There is also the issue of claustrophobia, but this can be resolved
with open sided MRI machines.